Longwall Library, Magdalen College, Oxford

Where previously, there were just 48 study places for Magdalen’ Colleges 600 students, now there are 120 in various settings, from an intimate attic floor tucked under the ornate Victorian roof structure to rows of window seats in the new reading room overlooking Longwall Quad.

A key prohibition stipulated that any new building could not exceed the height of the existing boundary wall on the street edge of Longwall Quad. With site parameters dictated by the listed Victorian library and the quad, Wright & Wright’s response was to rethink the way external space was used. Effectively, the quad has been transformed into an outdoor room. The emerald lawn is augmented by a sunken courtyard with planted beds and low stone walls for sitting, studying and socialising.

Clad in honey-coloured Clipsham stone, the low-slung form of the new wing wraps around the base of the Buckler Building, forming a plinth-like structure. The new reading room runs parallel with the street boundary wall to delineate the fourth side of the quad.

The entrance hall acts as a pivot uniting new and existing elements. On one side the luminous, top-lit volume of the new reading room with its views over the quad; on the other, a staircase leading up to the remodelled Buckler Building. Stripped back to its shell, the Victorian stone box now contains three new floors of bookcases and study desks. This tactic maximises the available volume and creates an atmospheric warren of nooks and crannies in which scholars can secret themselves.